The Peacock Manifesto (Peacock Tales Book 1)

by Stuart David

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do we…’

  ‘We’re not a band,’ Bob told him. ‘We’ve got an idea we want to make into a record.’

  ‘Alright.’

  ‘There’s a well-known song we want to turn into a dance record.’

  ‘Uh-huh. We can do that. What’s the song?’

  ‘We can’t tell you just now,’ I said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We’re…’

  ‘We don’t want anyone else to get hold of the idea yet,’ Bob told him.

  ‘Uh-huh. Okay. Now,’ he said, ‘do you guys have the individual passes on DAT?’

  ‘Do we have what?’

  ‘Do you have each of the tracks individually, from the masters? Is this something the original artists are involved with, or is it something you’re working on yourselves?’

  ‘It’s our own idea,’ Bob said.

  ‘And you don’t have the tracks individually?’

  ‘All we have is the idea, pal.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘All we’ve got…’

  ‘We’ve got the original record and the idea,’ Bob said. ‘That’s all.’

  ‘Fine. That’s not a problem. So there’s two ways we can do this. The first way is to take the original record as it is, then add the sounds you want. I can’t say how well that would work without knowing what the record is, but it would be the cheapest way. If you just want the track for yourselves, to play in a few clubs I’d guess that’s the way to do it. But if you wanted to do more with it, then you’d have trouble. If you couldn’t get permission from the artist and the label then you couldn’t put it out.’

  ‘What’s the other way?’ Bob asked.

  ‘The other way is more expensive. What you’d do is re-record the track from scratch, then add what you want to add.’

  ‘How the fuck would we do that?’ I asked him.

  He looked at me.

  ‘How would…’

  ‘Neither of us is musical guys,’ Bob said. ‘How would we go about that?’

  The guy smiled.

  ‘You’d get other people to do it for you,’ he said. ‘We couldn’t do that here, but I can put you in touch with people who can, and then you’d bring your individual tracks back here and we’d put it together however you want, adding whatever beats you need. You don’t have to let them in on your idea at the other studio either,’ he said. ‘As far as they’re concerned you’re making a cover version, that’s all. So they won’t steal your hit.’

  He smiled again and then gave us an address, a name and a phone number.

  ‘They do a good job there,’ he said. ‘They’ll find you good players and they’ll charge you reasonable rates. Just tell them you need a DAT of each track individually when you’re finished. Here, I’ll write that down for you too.’

  He took the piece of paper back and scribbled on it again. Then he shook our hands.

  ‘Where are you from?’ he asked me as we were leaving.

  ‘Scotland,’ I said.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘Scotland,’ Bob told him.

  ‘Really? That’s fantastic. I love your accent. I really do.’

  ‘Cheers, pal,’ I said.

  I don’t suppose I have to tell you what he said in reply.

  Chapter 15

  Out by the pool me and Bob took it easy, trying to get a bit of sleep on the sun loungers. We were going into the studio that night, and it was going to be a long one. 9pm till 9am. We’d managed to get it a lot cheaper during those hours, and I was just hoping it fucking worked out. Even at those nighttime prices we could still only afford this one shot.

  We’d told the guy there the song we wanted recorded, and he said he could find the people to play it, no problem.

  ‘Find someone who can really sing it,’ I told him. ‘We don’t want any fucking lady-boy. We want someone who can sing it like Glen.’

  He told me not to worry, he knew just the guy.

  ‘You won’t be disappointed,’ he said, and then he’d shown us round the place and we’d set the date.

  Dozing out there on the sun lounger I kept dreaming it was all going wrong. In one dream none of the musicians had ever heard the song and we couldn’t find a recording of it. I was trying to tell them how to play it, but each time I spoke they just said,

  ‘What?’ or ‘Sorry?’

  Even in fucking dreams…

  Then I had this one where everything was going good. It sounded great. But while we were listening to it Glen himself burst into the room. He’d heard about what we were up to and he wasn’t happy about it.

  ‘Peacock!’ he shouted as he came tearing in. ‘Peacock!’

  I woke up from that one, but the shouting carried on.

  ‘Peacock!’

  ‘Peacock!’

  I tried to work out where the fuck I was, and—still dozing—I looked up, up to where the shouting seemed to be coming from. And all I could see was a great fucking sheet of water coming down towards me. It hit me with a real fucking thump, and I leapt up out of the chair, fucking drenched.

  I could hear the wife cackling away up there.

  ‘Peacock you lazy bastard,’ she shouted. ‘Time to wake up. This is Hollywood. No one ever sleeps in Hollywood.’

  Bob was laughing away too, but not for long. While I was shaking myself off another sheet came down and landed on him.

  ‘Fuck…’ he spluttered, and shook himself like a dog.

  We ran into the hotel and got into the lift, but by the time we’d got to the room she’d locked herself in the bathroom.

  ‘Get out of there,’ I shouted, and she cackled like a mad fucking witch, but she wouldn’t unlock the door.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ she shouted back.

  So Bob went off to his room to get changed, and I took off my wet stuff.

  ‘I need a towel,’ I shouted to her then. ‘Open the fucking door.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on, I’m fucking soaking.’

  I heard some stuff going on in there and then I heard the lock click, but the door didn’t open.

  I pushed it slowly and went in. She was standing over at the bath with the showerhead in her hand. She’d taken it off the wall and had one hand on the tap.

  ‘Stay away,’ she said. ‘Take your towel and get out. I’m not scared to use this thing.’

  ‘You’re crazy,’ I told her and grabbed a towel.

  ‘Stay back,’ she said, but she turned it on anyway. The spray hit my back and I ran out.

  ‘You’re a fucking mad-woman,’ I shouted, and she started cackling again. I could hear her struggling to get the showerhead back on the wall and then she came through.

  ‘What’s the fucking idea?’ I asked her. ‘You’re insane.’

  ‘Ah, but you love me all the same,’ she said. ‘Don’t you, Peacock?’

  She started fucking up my hair while I was drying myself.

  ‘Ah, my wee Peacock,’ she said. And she planted these big daft kisses on my face, pulling my head about.

  ‘He loves his Bev, don’t you Peacock? Wee Peacock.’

  ‘Get off,’ I told her, but I didn’t have to. She’d seen herself in the mirror and she was already on her way over there for a closer look.

  ‘Jesus Christ,’ she said. ‘Look at the state of my hair. It’s a disaster. Here I am in Hollywood, and look at my hair. It cost me a fortune as well. Fifty quid. Fifty quid and I look like a total trollop.’

  She started pulling at bits of it, while I found myself a clean shirt and vest, and another pair of shorts.

  ‘What have you got planned for us for this evening anyway?’ she asked me. ‘Can we go to see some of the film studios? I want to see that street where they have all the stars in the pavement. But I read they do tours of the studios. What do you want to do first?’

  ‘Me and the wee man are working,’ I said. ‘I told you, we’re not on fucking holiday.’

  ‘What are you doing?’ she a
sked.

  ‘We’re going to oversee the first part of the recording.’

  ‘Oversee? What hell do you know about overseeing, Peacock? Still, it might be interesting. Have they recorded the music for any films in that studio?’

  ‘How the fuck would I know?’

  ‘I’ll bet they have. Oh, it’s exciting—just thinking about what might have been made there. And then tomorrow we can go and see the street with the stars in the pavement, and find out about one of those tours. I can hardly wait. I’m going to love it here, Peacock. It’s going to be great.’

  ‘Fucking hell…’ I muttered.

  Chapter 16

  At five to nine the three of us arrived at the studio in a taxi. Bev wanted to know why we were in a normal taxi and not a fucking limousine. She wouldn’t shut up about it.

  ‘What kind of people are you working for?’ she asked us. ‘This is Hollywood. Trust you, Peacock—to end up working for a company that sends you about in a normal taxi. This isn’t what I expected at all. I thought we’d have a TV in here, long leather sofas. A wee fridge full of champagne—and all the stuff we needed to make cocktails.’

  She had a fucking cocktail with her anyway. Something they’d made for her in the place we’d had dinner. Something called a Humphrey-fucking-Bogart. She couldn’t get over the name of it. It looked just like any other cocktail she’d ever had, a strange neon blue colour. It probably had the same stuff in it too. But she loved it cause it was called a Humphrey Bogart, and she’d wanted to take one to the studio with her, so I’d had to pay for the fucking glass.

  ‘Excuse me,’ she said to the driver on the way there, ‘could you slow down on the corners? I don’t want to spill my drink.’

  ‘There’s no drinking allowed in here, lady,’ he told her.

  She looked at me.

  She shook her head.

  Then she started banging on about us being in a normal taxi again.

  When we finally got to the studio she slammed the car door shut and the end of the fucking ridiculous feather boa she was wearing got caught inside. Then the guy started driving away.

  She had to run after him, wobbling on the heels—holding the Humphrey Bogart up high in one hand, and shouting-

  ‘Slow down. Stop. Slow down. Help me, Peacock. Stop him. Stop.’

  ‘What the fuck are you wearing that for anyway?’ I asked her, after he’d released the thing, and she’d come staggering back along.

  ‘I didn’t think we’d be in a bloody taxi,’ she said. ‘I thought we’d be working for people with a bit more class. But I should have known. I should have known what sort of thing you’d be involved with.’

  The feather boa was pink. The top she had on was green and orange. Her trousers were brown. She was one to be talking about class.

  ‘If we’d come in a limousine they’d have fucking thrown you out for looking like that,’ I told her, and she drew me a look as we went inside.

  Our guy Gerry, who owned the place, was there waiting for us, and he took us through into the lounge area. Bev latched onto him like a fucking limpet and started banging on, in great detail, about the limousine our company had sent us there in.

  ‘It was much bigger than we needed,’ she laughed. ‘But who’s complaining? I mixed this wee drink for myself in there too. I’m sure they won’t mind that I took the glass. Do you think they’ll mind?’

  ‘What the fuck are you playing at?’ I whispered to her when he went off to check something.

  ‘You don’t want him to know what kind of outfit you’re really working for,’ she said. ‘Otherwise he’ll treat you like shit.’

  ‘He probably saw us arriving in the fucking taxi,’ I told her. ‘All the fucking commotion you caused out there was bound to attract his attention.’

  ‘Grow up, Peacock,’ she said.

  When he came back Bob asked him if the musicians had arrived yet, and he told us the drummer was just setting up.

  ‘The piano player and the guitarist are here,’ he said. ‘And the bass player—if you can call a bass player a musician. We’re just waiting on the singer and the guy who’s going to do the string samples—then we’ll mic everything up and we’ll be ready to go. Come on through to the control room.’

  He held the door open for us and introduced us to another guy in there.

  ‘Spike is my tape op,’ he said. ‘If you need anything you just ask him. He’ll be more than happy to get it for you. Anything at all. Right, Spike?’

  Spike nodded.

  There was a big window in there that looked into another room, and in the other room we could see the drummer setting up, and the rest of them knocking about on their instruments.

  Gerry pressed a button on a desk that was just a fucking mass of buttons.

  ‘Guys,’ he said, ‘take a minute and come through to meet the folks who are paying you tonight.’

  So they all put down what they were doing and came through. Bev pushed to the front and lifted one hand up high for some kind of fucking ridiculous society handshake, still sipping from the cocktail.

  All four of them looked pretty bemused, but they shook her hand all the same.

  ‘Guys,’ Gerry said, ‘this is Beverley. And these two fellows are Bob and Peacock.’

  We shook hands with them too.

  ‘Rob on drums, Eddy on guitar, Marshall on piano and Mark on bass.’ Gerry said. ‘These guys are the best there are.’

  We knew he was talking shite, cause we knew what we were paying them to stay up all night. But we pretended anyway.

  ‘It’s just a shame you’re not getting to play a better song,’ Bev said to them, and they laughed.

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ I asked her. ‘You like the song.’

  ‘I like it, Peacock,’ she said, ‘but it’ll be hard going for them having to listen to it all night. I know. I have to do it often enough when you’re in one of your moods.’

  ‘What kind of music do you like?’ the drummer asked her.

  ‘Oh, older stuff,’ she said, her voice softening. ‘I like singers with a bit of class. Dean Martin, Tony Bennett. Frank.’

  ‘That’s good stuff,’ the drummer said.

  Then they went back to their room again.

  ‘Glen has class,’ I told her. ‘Glen has plenty of fucking class.’

  ‘Relax, Peacock,’ she said. ‘Relax. You’re obsessed. Spike…’

  The assistant guy looked up.

  ‘I wonder,’ she said, ‘do you think you could make me another cocktail?’

  ‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I can do that. What do you want in it?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mind,’ she told him. ‘Just so long as it tastes nice.’

  He went off with her empty glass, and while he was gone the string guy arrived.

  ‘Alright,’ Gerry said, ‘we’re just waiting for the singer now. I’ll start setting the mics up, and when he gets here we’ll be ready to go.’

  Chapter 17

  I very nearly shat myself. I thought it was him.

  I turned to Bob and he was staring too.

  Bev didn’t give a fuck, of course. She was nattering on to Spike about the cocktail he’d brought her.

  ‘It’s so smooth,’ she was saying. ‘Delicious.’

  But I just stared with my mouth open.

  ‘Hi guys,’ he said. ‘I’m Jack. Is Gerry around?’

  ‘Through there,’ Bob told him.

  He nodded.

  ‘What should I call you guys?’

  ‘Bob,’ Bob said. ‘And this is Peacock.’

  We shook his hand, and even though I knew it wasn’t him I felt fucking star-struck. I wasn’t even able to speak to him. I just stared.

  He had Glen’s square jaw, Glen’s hair from the 70’s. He was even wearing Glen’s fucking clothes.

  He was wearing a denim jacket that was all styled up like a cowboy shirt, with a pattern on the shoulders and the pockets and the cuffs. A flared pair of denims and cowboy boots. He even
had the fucking side-burns.

  When I thought about it, I knew even Glen wouldn’t look like that now—cause this guy was the same age now as Glen was back then. But if you’d met the two of them together—Glen the way he is now, and this guy—you’d have gone for this guy as being the real thing.

  ‘Did you see that?’ I asked Bev, when he’d gone through to the other room.

  ‘What?’ she said. ‘Was that the singer getting here?’

  ‘Aye. Did you see him?’

  ‘He looked like a big jessie,’ she said.

  ‘He looked exactly like Glen,’ I whispered.

  ‘That’s what I mean, Peacock. You’re obsessed, you know. Obsessed.‘

  I gave up on her. I turned to Bob.

  ‘How about that?’ I asked him.

  ‘That freaked me out,’ he said. ‘That was fucking uncanny.’

  It got more uncanny too. When Gerry came back through he got them all to play their instruments one at a time, while he moved some of those buttons on the desk. And when it came to the singer’s turn he sounded exactly like him too. Probably more than he looked like him.

  I stared at Bob and Bob stared at me. Bev slurped her cocktail.

  ‘Alright,’ Gerry said, ‘give me something all together, guys. Anything at all.’

  They started banging around on all different songs, and then they stopped, laughing.

  ‘Okay,’ one of them said. You could hear them speaking in our room, but only very faintly, through the speakers.

  ‘How about this, Beverley,’ one of them shouted, and they started playing again, joining in one at a time as the tune went on. Then the singer started singing. ‘Strangers in the Night.’ That fucking woke her up. She got up out of her chair and started dancing around—a slow dance, holding her cocktail up in the air and swaying from side to side, twirling her fucking feather boa.

  The guy sounded exactly like one of those old singers now, nothing like Glen at all, and she was in her fucking element. When they finished that song they started playing ‘That’s Amore’, and she ran through to the other room, and started dancing in there. We could see her through the window, waltzing about on her own—and at the instrumental the singer partnered her, and they waltzed about together—her holding the cocktail up high above his shoulder.